Towel Boy Basketball, Version 3.0

[wade moore]

We came back down to earth - but it does feel pretty good to be 4-6 with literally the 3rd worst team in the nation (according to whatever ratings CW uses for the cupcake list).

[jbergey22]

Very cool!

The scoring stats seem to be a bit on the low side. No 20 point scorers.

Can I change my nickname from the Warriors? I didnt realize all computer controlled teams had the same name. Thanks

[Coffee Warlord]

Whaddya want it changed to?

[jbergey22]

Winhawks.

Thanks CW.

[Coffee Warlord]

BTW kids, feel free to post the link to this on other related forums you frequent, if any. Can field a lot more players than we currently have.

[jbergey22]

Posted the link over at Out of the Park developments.

[illinifan999]

Wow, Piedmont somehow comes out 15 point winners against the #3 ranked team.

[scoman]

New to the game,and it looks real cool, I was wondering if there is a 64 team tourney at the end of the season, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere.

[Coffee Warlord]

Not this season. It's on my to-do list, and will definitely be added. I wanted it kept simple early on, to fix any bugs that came up and such.

[scoman]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Not this season. It's on my to-do list, and will definitely be added. I wanted it kept simple early on, to fix any bugs that came up and such.

Ok great. I also play another basketball sim called basketsim and I sent the word out to a few of the guys over there and asked them to spread the word. I think this game would be right up their alley. So hopefully some will come check the game out.

[Travis]

How are you liking things so far Coffee? I really like the feedback the game is giving on a game to game basis right now, finding it pretty interesting when it comes to figuring out lineups and the like. Kind of curious though what your thoughts are getting to see the full scope unfolding.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Travis

I really like the feedback the game is giving on a game to game basis right now, finding it pretty interesting when it comes to figuring out lineups and the like.

I hope CW doesn't take this the wrong way, 'cause I appreciate his efforts & the opportunity he's given FOFC to be involved but ... am I missing something?

"Feedback"? I feel like this is maybe the most random thing I've ever played, I have only the vaguest idea WTH is going on half the time, little to no idea why certain similarly rated players fail or succeed, and even less idea (beyond the obvious, that I inadvertently completed benched one guy & moved a SG to backup SF) how my now 4-9 team just completely routed a now 9-4 top 15 team. And I mean no fucking clue how that happened, which would be kind of nice since I'd sort of like to be able to repeat the process occasionally.

So to my original question, other than the box scores & pbp, what "feedback" am I missing somewhere amongst all the menus?

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

"Feedback"? I feel like this is maybe the most random thing I've ever played, I have only the vaguest idea WTH is going on half the time, little to no idea why certain similarly rated players fail or succeed, and even less idea (beyond the obvious, that I inadvertently completed benched one guy & moved a SG to backup SF) how my now 4-9 team just completely routed a now 9-4 top 15 team. And I mean no fucking clue how that happened, which would be kind of nice since I'd sort of like to be able to repeat the process occasionally.

So to my original question, other than the box scores & pbp, what "feedback" am I missing somewhere amongst all the menus?

Believe me, we're in agreement here. SOMEHOW there will be more feedback as soon as I figure out how the hell to properly do it. It looks and feels very, very random. I know it's less random than it looks, 'cause I know the code. How to translate that to people...we'll see.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by Travis

How are you liking things so far Coffee? I really like the feedback the game is giving on a game to game basis right now, finding it pretty interesting when it comes to figuring out lineups and the like. Kind of curious though what your thoughts are getting to see the full scope unfolding.

Heh. See above. I still don't think the game gives the user enough information on what their choices are doing in-game by a longshot. That's probably going to be my primary focus, aside from some tweaks.

[Travis]

Well I've been combining the stat results from games with the star ratings and making adjustments based off of that. So far it's worked out relatively well/predictably for me, that's why I was saying I liked it. Could be that I'm getting random results that are matching up with what I'm expecting, but the changes I've made, so far, have matched up, for the most part, with what I was trying to achieve.

[Sgran]

I've made it a priority to get my guys in good gameday shape and I've made a defensive adjustment. The result has been a nice little run. However, I'm getting completely shut out in recruiting, so the future is pretty grim for IWU. It would be comforting to know that the star players signing on to SCUBA will jump ship after one year (hint hint hint).

[illinifan999]

Piedmont beats another highly ranked opponent at home. No idea how, or why. Something I don't understand is how the opposing C had 5 1/2 star rating for offense. He had 0 points, 1 rebound, and 1 assist in 15 minutes.

[PackerFanatic]

Originally Posted by illinifan999

Piedmont beats another highly ranked opponent at home. No idea how, or why. Something I don't understand is how the opposing C had 5 1/2 star rating for offense. He had 0 points, 1 rebound, and 1 assist in 15 minutes.

Maybe the offense did really well when he was on the floor, despite his numbers.

[illinifan999]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Maybe the offense did really well when he was on the floor, despite his numbers.

That could be it. I'll admit I'm too lazy to go back through the gamelog and see how many points, etc were registered when he was on the floor. Just a little bit of an oddity that had me scratching my head.

[Coffee Warlord]

The star ratings are going to get another major overhaul this offseason. I stand unhappy with 'em.

[wade moore]

Looking forward to next season - maybe I won't have the worst roster anymore .

[Coffee Warlord]

By the way, checking the scheduling code for next season / offseason...

History / Final Standings are calculated 12/9.
Recruits move to their teams 12/10.
Walk ons are generated, lineups are reset, stats archived, and new high schoolers are created 12/11.
Schedules are generated 12/13, season 2 begins 12/21.

[sterlingice]

Well this is a bummer. CW said there's no tourney this year. I'd love to see how Richmond would fare against MNU, Suny-Yonkers, Edmonton, and the rest

Geez- I know all of those teams would kill any computer team. But there are CPU teams out there like Buckhorn who are ranked highly. They have a decent team but if they had some human teams in that conference, they'd have a lot more than 1 loss. Makes me wish every conference had at least a couple of humans to balance things out.

SI

[sterlingice]

Anyways- to get a little more chatter going over here, here's the post I made over on the CTBB message board about some possible ideas I was kicking around a couple of weeks ago:

CTBB Suggestions

BUGS/MINOR
-Don't think decrease code shows up. I've had guys lose a box but I have never seen any negative colors
-Would like to see a new forum for in-game or ctbb or something like that for talking about polls, your team, etc. I suppose that's what FOFC is for, tho
-More things like "around the league"; maybe a top 3 for each conference on the conference page or something but use statistics that are more dynamic like best shooters or best efficiency last 5 games rather than static things that won't change from the start to end of the year

RECRUITING SKILLS
-tie GPA to a skill, possibly mental and control or something else underrepresented skill-wise; that way you can recruit to academics
-similarly, try to link other skills away from those; on average, if a player is good at school, they should be slightly worse at basketball as they spend more time studying

SKILL GROWTH
-players should max out at end of junior year *at the earliest* unless they have very little potential; once a player is maxed out, all a coach can do is choose wk-off; need to either implement some sort of limited degradation (not nearly as fun as it feels like you're losing something you've worked hard to get) or slow training speed (better solution)
-week off minor degredation is good, but, again, if players are capping out sophomore year- well, they just shouldn't unless there are also juniors that jump to the nba
-if there is an "nba jump" system put in place, it should be for only the very best- 60+ boxes (or so); otherwise, why try to shoot for good players if they're just going to leave way too early; it will be a recruiting race for who can get the most guys who have 30 boxes already with a 40 potential so they can be filled out after their freshman year and just start the next 3
-base skill cap seems wildly variant- possibly set up at 40-100 rather than 20-100 and do that in tandem with slowing the skill growth; that way the skill growth evens out a little

BLUE CHIPS
-Should be extremely hard to get more than 1 blue chip for game balance; there should be a penalty so that if one blue chip commits, it's almost impossible to get a second
-possibly introduce 1-and-done for blue chips so they don't unbalance game; tho also perhaps, tie some skills or rating to "willingness to stay in school"- again, say, something like mental and something else
-blue chips are too good; after blue chips- most players top out around 50 boxes while most blue chips start with 40; they need to start with lower base values (say, 30) so that when they get to college, they aren't better than almost everyone on the floor
-introduce "project" blue chips- higher base skill cap (say, 60-100) and very high potential like current blue chips, but with very low current skills (i.e. 10ish boxes)- think players just starting basketball a couple of years before college who were athletes in another sport or from another country
-too many blue chips in the pool this year: 12! particularly bad since the difference between them and the rest of the pool is so great

SKILL BALANCE
-near as I can tell, here is the matrix of what skill lines up with what goes on during the game

slashing/dribble: aggression, awareness, control, physical, speed
passing: aggression, awareness, mental
outside shooting: aggression, awareness, control, mental
rebounding: awareness, strength, height
steals: aggression, speed
avoid shot block: control, speed
shot blocking: aggression, phsyical, strength, height
overall defense: awareness, mental, physical
defend drivers: strength
avoid draw foul: endurance, strength
draw fouls: control, strength
free throws: mental
fatigue: endurance

-similarly, here's how it looks for individual skills:

(front court- guards)
aggression: driving, steals, 3ptrs, passing
awareness: 3ptrs, low turnovers
control: low turnovers, avoid shot block, 3ptrs, draw fouls
endurance: longer play, foul less
mental: low turnovers, defense, free throws, 3ptrs
physical: defense, driving
speed: steals, driving, avoid shot block
strength:
(back court- big men)
aggression: shot blocks
awareness: rebounding
control: draw fouls, avoid shot block
endurance: longer play, foul less
mental: free throws
physical: defense
speed: avoid shot block
strength: block shots, draw fouls, foul less

-as it stands, endurance and height/weight kindof stand alone; endurance as it doesn't affect much in gameplay except for how long you can play and height/weight as you can't change that
-forwards and centers just need strength, awareness, and physical; maybe a little control or aggression; but it seems like they need so many fewer trainable skills. Might as well just search on the three "core" skills for defense and rebounds and I have no idea what even helps them with shots, looking at the attribute page
-on the other hand, it seems like you need pretty much everything for being a guard. Hell, it takes 4 skills just to put up a 3 pointer whereas it only takes 1 to rebound, if you're a forward (as well as height) so why the unbalance where you need so many skills to be just a mediocre guard but you could lock in a couple of skills on a tall big man and have an elite center?

SI

[sterlingice]

The couple most significant training changes I can think of that I had been kicking around the last couple of weeks

1) Show any skill decrease, no matter how small. I've lost boxes and never even known it (I keep track of how many total boxes I have, but not individual ones). This will also help with the next thing as it will give players something to train with upperclassmen (i.e. I just saw a small decrease in aggression, even tho it looks maxed out- better train that next week as I have nothing better to do).

2) Upperclassmen training - Week off should give very little, if any, in terms of GPA increase. I'm still a bit leary about significant skill decreases for week off as later on, there's nothing to train. This way, if you have upperclassmen who are close to maxed out, you have to at least rotate between week off and study hall to keep both form and GPA up. Also, this dovetails nicely with #1 in that if you see minor skill decreases, you have something else to train with these maxed out players, as well.

3) Single type training. This opens up a can of worms that may not be worth opening. However, a possible balancing I would say is thus: if people want to just train a single skill as opposed to full training on the first two skills and playing time-dependent third skill, you could allow for 125-150% training (maybe 133%) on a single skill. That way the bonus isn't that much but it does allow for something if a player just has one skill left to train or one that is severely lagging behind others.

SI

[sterlingice]

Ok, last poll of the season.

I feel bad about it, but I had to vote myself #1. We had an all human conference and some good teams in it but the Rhinos went a human-best 16-2, including 13 wins in a row to end the season. I wish there were a way to drop those computer teams in the rankings or give a win against a computer team half the weight of a human win or something. We have 4 teams that are 11-7 and 10-8 which would have 13 or 14 wins if they could beat up on some computer teams.

SUNY - Yonkers Yetis has to come in at #2 as they have 2 more wins than everyone else. It's closer than it should be, tho, with a couple of computer teams in the conference. Still, only 3 losses- all on the road. Can't really beat 10-1 in the last 11, either. Tho I'd try to mix it up a little more than screen and man-to-man They get 3 top 50 recruits for next year, including #2 Brant Donnaldson so they shouldn't slow down at all.

The next 3 were very hard for me to decide between, which was particularly tough since 1 was going to be left off of my ballot. All 3 were 13-5. They all started out slow, but once they got the hang of the game, all had only 1 loss down the stretch against at least 10 wins.

Winterfall Direwolf comes in at #3, barely. If they don't lose their last game, they're the clear cut #3 but they jumbled things by trying out some new tactics and losing a road game to end the season. They lost 4 in a row to start but figured things out, reeling off 13 in a row before losing at Piedmont. Still, the Great Lakes is a really strong conference, possibly the best in the game. There are 3 pretty bad human teams but 7 good ones. They would have been one heck of a group of teams to watch if there were a tournament. Like Richmond, they favored the Triangle and 2-3 zone, but also liked to mix it up sometimes. They also finished the year with the 3rd strongest roster in the game and, like #1 and #2- they have 3 top 50 recruits including a blue chip.

First, there's the IWU Titans started 3-4 but then went 10-1 about the time they switched to a very stingy 3-2 zone defense which only allowed 2 games over 70 during that time. They had the 7th strongest roster in the game and 9th highest GPA.

Then, there's the UW-Madison Badgers. They lost 4 of first 5 but closed out the season on a 12-1 run. This is a young team with only 1 senior and he didn't even start so look out for them again next year. Unfortunately, they're going to get left out as #5. That 1 loss coming down the stretch was to the Fighting Trout. That's just embarrassing.

Seriously, tho, I think IWU has a really small edge in terms of team quality. If they played a neutral site game in, say, Rockford, I think IWU wins in a close one so they get #4.

SI

[Karlifornia]

My team sure did go into the shitter after an awesome start. The blame lays at my feet. I'll figure out what went wrong. We'll be back next year!

[illinifan999]

Piedmont finishes season 1 with a 5 game winning streak. Where was this team at the beginning of the season?

[Recoil]

Originally Posted by Karlifornia

My team sure did go into the shitter after an awesome start. The blame lays at my feet. I'll figure out what went wrong. We'll be back next year!

QFT

[Professor58]

Winterfall Direwolf did turn it on after a bad start and I hope to turn those freshman into a leading team next season.

[Sgran]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Ok, last poll of the season.

I feel bad about it, but I had to vote myself #1. We had an all human conference and some good teams in it but the Rhinos went a human-best 16-2, including 13 wins in a row to end the season. I wish there were a way to drop those computer teams in the rankings or give a win against a computer team half the weight of a human win or something. We have 4 teams that are 11-7 and 10-8 which would have 13 or 14 wins if they could beat up on some computer teams.

SUNY - Yonkers Yetis has to come in at #2 as they have 2 more wins than everyone else. It's closer than it should be, tho, with a couple of computer teams in the conference. Still, only 3 losses- all on the road. Can't really beat 10-1 in the last 11, either. Tho I'd try to mix it up a little more than screen and man-to-man They get 3 top 50 recruits for next year, including #2 Brant Donnaldson so they shouldn't slow down at all.

The next 3 were very hard for me to decide between, which was particularly tough since 1 was going to be left off of my ballot. All 3 were 13-5. They all started out slow, but once they got the hang of the game, all had only 1 loss down the stretch against at least 10 wins.

Winterfall Direwolf comes in at #3, barely. If they don't lose their last game, they're the clear cut #3 but they jumbled things by trying out some new tactics and losing a road game to end the season. They lost 4 in a row to start but figured things out, reeling off 13 in a row before losing at Piedmont. Still, the Great Lakes is a really strong conference, possibly the best in the game. There are 3 pretty bad human teams but 7 good ones. They would have been one heck of a group of teams to watch if there were a tournament. Like Richmond, they favored the Triangle and 2-3 zone, but also liked to mix it up sometimes. They also finished the year with the 3rd strongest roster in the game and, like #1 and #2- they have 3 top 50 recruits including a blue chip.

First, there's the IWU Titans started 3-4 but then went 10-1 about the time they switched to a very stingy 3-2 zone defense which only allowed 2 games over 70 during that time. They had the 7th strongest roster in the game and 9th highest GPA.

Then, there's the UW-Madison Badgers. They lost 4 of first 5 but closed out the season on a 12-1 run. This is a young team with only 1 senior and he didn't even start so look out for them again next year. Unfortunately, they're going to get left out as #5. That 1 loss coming down the stretch was to the Fighting Trout. That's just embarrassing.

Seriously, tho, I think IWU has a really small edge in terms of team quality. If they played a neutral site game in, say, Rockford, I think IWU wins in a close one so they get #4.

SI

Nice review, but I'm not sure human teams are better than AI teams, since there may have been a lot of absenteeism. In any case, I enjoyed the season and am thrilled I ended up as sterlingice's number 4 ranked team. I'm going to enjoy it while I can because my recruiting was a big blah. I really, really, hope Coffee institutes some one-and-done's, SAT scandals and jumps to Europe.

[PackerFanatic]

I am pretty pleased with my finish after a back-and-forth season. After a 3 - 6 start, I finished 7 - 2 and had two guys finish tied for the conference lead in points per game.

[Coffee Warlord]

Training Updates
- Signifigantly lowered GPA gains for study hall and week off (week off moreso).
- Slightly lowered chance of gameday increase on week off.
- All stats have a chance of very, very slowly regressing. Week Off and Study Hall have a slightly higher chance of causing this.
- Player's Mental stat now affects GPA gains/losses.

Recruiting Updates
- Fixed playing time to check recruiting team's roster strength vs overall league strength - ie If you have a cupcake team, recruit will like you more.
- Overall, made it easier to get initial points.
- Made point spend more effective for landing recruits. It is now more likely you can blast recruits with 5 points / week and land them, even with someone who starts at very low initial interest. This should also increase the pace of commitments by a little bit.

[sterlingice]

Well, this season has started off rough for Richmond (kindof forgot about the game but did set up training a week ago). There was a heartbreaking 1 point loss but then we visited Williamsburg and were crushed by wade's team. My lack of a 2nd center is killing my team. Last year was flukey where I had 3 guys commit all on the same day so I got an extra SG and SF when I only needed 1 of those and no C to commit.

Methinks someone needs to check the new training algorithm. I'm glad we can see training losses now but I'm losing points in primary and secondary skills that I'm training. With quite a few players. I have to think that's a bug, right? I had 24 skill downs last training set- that's 2 per player and I only had 1 player do day off and 1 study hall, so 10 had standard training (and they had 20 skill downs so that's 2 each for them, as well).

It looks like I'm pretty much losing 0.09 GPA per guy per training session. Now, if you've adjusted that and nuked week off/study hall- this is going to be one heck of a balancing act just to get my players back to where they were at season start, much less actually train guys. I figured it would be like last year where you could gain or lose each week with a slight nod towards dropping, but not drop like a rock each week. But, geez- I'm losing 0.09 *on average* (up to 0.13) and study hall only gained back 0.10 on the guy I tried it on.

Also, we've already had a bunch of commits after just the first recruiting round (5, iirc). Is that the goal? And is it going to be a lot quicker than previously?

SI

[wade moore]

Eeek - totally spaced on the season starting backup.. maybe an e-mail when the season rolls over?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Eeek - totally spaced on the season starting backup.. maybe an e-mail when the season rolls over?

+1

[PackerFanatic]

+10

I remembered hearing something about 12/21 but then forgot again until I saw SI's post.

[sterlingice]

Yeah, training is definitely screwed up, now that I have another day of data. This time I had 2 guys with week off, so we'll leave them out of the equation (they had 3 and 4 drops, respectively).

The other 10 guys had 23 drops, for a total of 2.3 per player. And those are all guys who did normal training.

For the season, I've had the following
-5 boxes
+5 boxes

So, with 10 guys training each time, I'm a net *0* boxes trained on the year, 2 practices in. Something is horribly broken with the skill regression.

For the 10 guys who trained, I had a net change of 0.00 so that's probably around what it should be. That's much better than the first week where I had something like -0.92 across the board. Still, probably need to get study hall to have a little more effect than just 0.10.

Oh, and one of the day off guys had his gameday actually go down from ready to unprepared. Huh? Again, game day and study hall need to have some sort of punch restored to them.

SI

[illinifan999]

One of my freshman displays the bars, but the rating names are blanks.

[sterlingice]

Wow. And recruiting has really sped up, maybe a bit too fast. Almost all of the blue chips and about 10 others are already committed after 2 sessions. I kindof preferred the pace last time where if you wanted to go after the big boys, some of them didn't commit until halfway into the season.

SI

[PackerFanatic]

And it hurts those who haven't really gotten back into the swing yet - I haven't even gotten a chance to look at recruits yet.

[sterlingice]

Plus, I still think it should be nearly impossible to get 2 blue chips at once, at least until 1-and-dones are implemented.

SI

[Coffee Warlord]

Well, that was unexpected.

And fyi - there are still more changes in the hopper, but I've been nonstop at work over the last few weeks, and I have FM2010. Just haven't had time to sit down and hack out code.

[sterlingice]

Ok, it's been a while since this was bumped and it's time to post some of the number crunching I've been doing. At this point, unless something is changed, we're pretty much looking at a lost season in terms of training, recruiting, everything. Then, again, judging by the polls (or lack of votes thereof), may not be much interest as is.

These are the training suggestions and notes I've noticed. The recruiting issues are a whole other ball of wax (way too fast this season, handicap a school's chance to get 2+ blue chips, make initial preferences a strong weight perhaps, introduce some way to spread out when recruits commit so you have maybe 1 a week instead of 3 committing all at once in the same session, etc). But let's dig into training:

1) The reporting is off on what is going up and down. For instance, in this past training updated for Richmond, Pete Levin lost a point in speed this past training session and it didn't even show up as red. He had all 41 boxes filled prior to this week's training (week off). Now he's at 38, which means he lost 3, but the red was on aggression, mental, and endurance. So, even tho he lost a box in speed, it didn't even show up as going down.

1A) I'll notice that occasionally I will have players actually lose or gain a box. I don't mean one goes from light blue to dark blue and vice versa. I mean a box is there that wasn't or a box goes away. It's probably just a rounding issue. However, for instance, Cordell Howell had 37 to start last season, gained one partway through the year to get to 38, and is now back down to 37. It could be a counting error, but I try to check and double check when I see something odd and, well, I've been watching something odd with him for almost 2 seasons now.

2) There is no way that you should lose in a skill you practiced in. Yet I've had it happen with a couple of players every single week. It just doesn't make sense. Which leads to point 3.

3) This skill degredation is getting crazy. I've been averaging at least 2 red skills per player per training session since the season began. Here are the numbers I compiled for the last 3 sessions

12/29 04 hi / 18 lo / 05 mx / 07 no / 31 dw / 1 no train / 09 up blk / 05 dwn blk (+2 -1 -1 -2 +1 +3 -1 +3)
12/31 02 hi / 19 lo / 07 mx / 10 no / 24 dw / 1 no train / 07 up blk / 03 dwn blk (+1 +2 +2 -1 -2 +2)
01/02 00 hi / 09 lo / 03 mx / 09 no / 21 dw / 4 no train / 01 up blk / 12 dwn blk (+1 -3 -1 -2 -1 -2 -3)

hi - blue attribute (high growth)
lo - green attribute (low growth)
mx - likely maxed out (in training attribute only; no growth color but all boxes are dark blue)
no - no growth (in training attribute only; no growth color but has light blue boxes available)
dw - red attribute (down growth, i.e. degredation)
no train - players who had "non-training", i.e. study hall or week off
up blk - total number of block gain in the training session for entire team
dw blk - total number of block lost in the training session for entire team
() - all individual block number changes

As you can see, there are a ton of decreases (31, 24, and 21).

4) Not only that, but skill growth has been really hit hard. Not only was there significant skill degredation introduced but growth has been nerfed so players barely improve at all.

Here is my total skill growth the entire season:
2 study halls
8 weeks off
50 active training sessions (60 possible)

This is the total change of my 12 players:
+1 +1 -3 -1 -1 0 -1 0 -2 0 +1 -1

So, with 50 training sessions and 10 off, I have a net change of -6 for my entire team for the entire season. As you can see from the three session stats in point 3 and from the stats above, I'm losing more than I'm gaining every single week for pretty much every player across the board.

I realize there are different speeds for different players with the hidden skill cap, but these are the same players who were jumping last season. This team is only 3 players removed from that. Granted, about half of those players nearly tapped themselves out. However, there was still a lot of room for growth on the team going into this season as 6 of my 12 players had 5 boxes or more and they have stagnated as well.

I'm not saying last year was perfect as we talked about how it was too fast. But this is way too slow and there needs to be a change to find a happy medium.

5) Week off has been completely nerfed. I know we talked about it being too strong last time but now, between the penalties *and* other changes, it's swung way too far the other way. So much for trying to keep your guys in good form. This past training session, I had Oscar Crawford, who was struggling with a 2.19 GPA and "unprepared" status. Well, after a week off, that GPA crept up to 2.26 and his gameday status only went up a level to "ready". I've had similar results with other players- basically 0.10 GPA and 1 level of gameday. I think there need to be some level of diminishing returns added. If your GPA is below 3.0 or gameday is below "ready", then you should get a bit more of a boost than if above those levels. That way you can still use it the way it was intended- to sacrifice a valuable training session (and possibly some skill degredation) to help out those players struggling. But, for those juniors and seniors near their training cap, it shouldn't help as much.

6) In general, I'd try to do some "rubber banding" with GPA and gameday status with them wanting to head towards, say, 2.5 and "ready". If a player has a higher mental, than their GPA should skew a little higher or make better rolls to gain GPA and combat degredation. Heck, maybe find a skill or two to tie to Gameday like, say, Endurance. This would negate the need for the change above with different levels of "week off" as a player's skills will always try to get towards those middle levels.

The next post is the dump of my training stats for the year (there are a couple of notes I have as well, but I didn't feel like editing them out).

SI

[sterlingice]

Richmond Training File Dump

C
Levin, Jr - almost full (39/41) and starter for next 2 years! 
12/17 3.12 rdy (39/41)
12/22 3.08 ene (40/41) spe-hi/end-mx/agg-mx/awa-dw
12/24 3.17 ene (38/41) men-lo/agg-no/awa-mx/con-dw/end-dw/str-dw
12/29 3.26 ene (41/41) phy-hi/men-hi/str-lo/agg-dw
12/31 3.54 exc (41/41) study hall; agg-dw/spe-dw
01/02 3.72 ptm (38/41) week off; agg-dw/men-dw/end-dw

PF
Bivins, So - good potential (30/41); live scrim 3/0/2, ball handlings 2/0/2
12/17 3.93 rdy (30/41)
12/22 3.83 ene (33/42) end-hi/str-mx/men-lo/agg-dw
12/24 3.88 ene (33/42) con-lo/spe-lo/phy-no/agg-dw/end-dw
12/29 3.84 ene (32/42) phy-lo/men-lo/str-no/spe-dw/agg-dw/awr-dw
12/31 3.83 rdy (33/42) con-hi/spe-lo/phy-no/agg-lo/men-dw
01/02 3.78 ene (31/41) phy-lo/men-lo/str-dw/end-dw
Crawford, So - good potential (31/41); low GPA; pass drills (3/1/1), live scrim (2/0/2)
12/17 2.40 rdy (31/41)
12/22 2.32 rdy (31/41) awa-lo/con-lo/spe-no/end-dw/phy-dw/str-dw
12/24 2.21 unp (30/41) end-hi/str-lo/men-lo/phy-dw/agg-dw
12/29 2.27 rdy (33/41) awa-lo/con-lo/spe-mx/agg-lo/phy-dw
12/31 2.19 unp (31/41) phy-lo/men-no/str-lo/con-dw/spe-dw/awa-dw
01/02 2.26 rdy (31/41) week off; men-dw/str-dw

PG
Flores, So - almost full (37/39) and possible starter for 3 years!
12/17 4.00 rdy (37/39)
12/22 3.87 unp (36/39) end-dw/str-lo/men-no/agg-dw/spe-dw/awa-dw
12/24 3.92 use (36/39) end-lo/str-no/men-hi/agg-dw/con-dw/phy-dw
12/29 4.00 rdy (36/39) week off; spe-dw/awa-dw/end-dw/phy-dw/str-dw
12/31 3.95 rdy (36/39) phy-lo/men-lo/str-no
01/02 3.99 ene (35/39) phy-no/men-lo/str-lo
Seitz, Fr - high potential (29/50); weight room (4/2/3), shoot drills (3/3/2), wind sprints (3/3/3) overlap
12/17 2.41 rdy (29/50)
12/22 2.33 rdy (30/50) str-dw/phy-dw/end-dw/awa-lo/con-lo
12/24 2.29 rdy (29/50) str-lo/phy-dw/end-hi/men-lo/agg-dw
12/29 2.29 ene (30/50) spe-no/end-no/agg-lo/con-lo/awr-lo/phy-dw
12/31 2.19 ene (29/50) spe-no/end-no/agg-no/awa-dw/con-dw/spe-dw
01/02 2.29 rdy (29/50) spe-no/end-no/agg-no/men-dw/str-dw
Lemoine, Jr - bench (27/29) at most
12/17 3.46 rdy (27/29)
12/22 3.38 unp (27/29) end-dw/str-lo/men-no/con-dw/phy-dw/awa-dw
12/24 3.42 use (28/29) agg-lo/awa-mx/con-mx/spe-dw
12/29 3.34 use (26/29) men-lo/agg-dw/awa-mx/spe-dw/str-dw
12/31 3.34 use (28/29) end-mx/str-lo/men-lo/agg-lo/spe-dw
01/02 3.46 rdy (26/29) week off; con-dw/men-dw/spe-dw/end-dw/phy-dw

SF
Herndon, Fr - blue chip (40/72); pass drill (4/6/5), weight room (5/2/2), game film (3/5/4)
12/17 3.29 rdy (40/72)
12/22 3.22 ene (41/72) awa-no/con-no/spe-dw/phy-dw
12/24 3.12 ene (41/72) awa-no/con-no/spe-dw/phy-dw/men-dw
12/29 3.13 rdy (40/72) awa-dw/con-no/spe-dw/end-lo/agg-dw/str-dw
12/31 3.09 ene (40/72) awa-no/con-no/spe-no/agg-lo/phy-dw/str-dw
01/02 3.09 exc (40/72) str-no/phy-no/end-no/con-dw
Hennessey, So - decent (32/35) and almost full
12/17 3.32 rdy (32/35)
12/22 3.35 rdy (31/35) end-lo/str-lo/men-mx
12/24 3.34 exc (31/35) end-lo/str-mx/men-lo
12/29 3.24 ene (31/35) end-lo/str-lo/men-mx
12/31 3.25 ene (31/35) con-lo/spe-mx/phy-mx
01/02 3.22 exc (31/35) end-lo/str-lo/men-mx 
Williams, Sr - decent (32/32) and full; backup PF?
12/17 3.78 rdy (32/32)
12/22 3.88 rdy (32/32) study hall; spe-dw/phy-dw
12/24 4.00 unp (32/32) week off; spe-dw/phy-dw/men-dw
12/29 3.95 unp (32/32) end-lo/str-dw/men-mx/agg-lo/awa-lo/spe-lo
12/31 3.92 use (32/32) agg-lo/awa-mx/con-mx/phy-dw/str-dw
01/02 4.00 rdy (31/32) week off; con-dw

SG
Howell, Sr - good (38/38) and full
12/17 4.00 rdy (38/38)
12/22 4.00 ene (38/38) week off; agg-dw/spe-dw
12/24 4.00 exc (37/38) week off; agg-dw/awa-dw/end-dw/str-dw
12/29 4.00 exc (36/38) end-hi/str-mx/men-lo/con-dw/spe-dw/phy-dw
12/31 3.99 exc (38/38) con-lo/spe-lo/phy-mx/str-lo/men-dw
01/02 3.99 exc (35/37) con-lo/spe-dw/phy-mx/awa-dw
Lane, Jr -  good potential (34/39) and almost full
12/17 4.00 rdy (34/39)
12/22 3.94 ene (34/39) agg-lo/awa-lo/con-no
12/24 4.00 exc (34/39) agg-lo/awa-no/con-no/men-dw/spe-dw
12/29 4.00 ptm (36/39) awa-lo/con-lo/spe-no/agg-dw/men-dw/phy-dw
12/31 3.96 exc (34/39) awa-hi/con-lo/spe-mx/men-dw/agg-dw/phy-dw
01/02 4.00 ptm (35/39) end-mx/str-lo/men-no/agg-dw
Estonina, Fr - high potential (27/47); shoot drill (5/4/3), def pract (3/2/2) - almost perfect train
12/17 3.80 rdy (27/47)
12/22 3.67 rdy (27/47) agg-dw/awa-no/con-no/spe-dw
12/24 3.70 unp (27/47) agg-dw/awa-dw/con-no/str-dw/end-dw
12/29 3.59 unp (27/47) agg-no/awa-no/con-dw/men-lo/end-hi
12/31 3.53 rdy (28/47) agg-no/awa-no/con-lo/spe-lo/str-lo/men-dw
01/02 3.40 ene (28/47) agg-no/awa-dw/con-lo/spe-dw

12/29 04 hi / 18 lo / 05 mx / 07 no / 31 dw / 1 no train / 09 up blk / 05 dwn blk (+2 -1 -1 -2 +1 +3 -1 +3)
12/31 02 hi / 19 lo / 07 mx / 10 no / 24 dw / 1 no train / 07 up blk / 03 dwn blk (+1 +2 +2 -1 -2 +2)
01/02 00 hi / 09 lo / 03 mx / 09 no / 21 dw / 4 no train / 01 up blk / 12 dwn blk (+1 -3 -1 -2 -1 -2 -3)

hi - blue attribute (high growth)
lo - green attribute (low growth)
mx - likely maxed out (in training attribute only; no growth color but all boxes are dark blue)
no - no growth (in training attribute only; no growth color but has light blue boxes available)
dw - red attribute (down growth, i.e. degredation)
no train - players who had "non-training", i.e. study hall or week off
up blk - total number of block gain in the training session for entire team
dw blk - total number of block lost in the training session for entire team
() - all individual block number changes

Most of this was explained in the previous post. I always list the three attributes that are trained first so that's why you'll sometimes have a 'mx' or 'no' ahead of a 'lo' or 'dw'.

SI

[sterlingice]

Bump.

Well, for the current training session, less red than usual but the same scant movement as the rest of this season including a guy who lost a box despite having only one green attribute.

Is it time to just wait for TBB 4.0 at this point? I really enjoyed the first season and trying to help suggest some changes but at this point, I'm just spinning my wheels as I lose as many points as I gain in training. It's not worth the time to track the data if it's all pretty much a net 0.

SI

[Coffee Warlord]

Training has been tweaked. Again.

Bumped up the growth and cut the loss rate in half. We'll see what happens.

And yes. I'm still insanely busy at work, and still don't REALLY know what to do in regards to the game engine, which I still am not sure how to make more meaningful w/ regards to feedback.

[JonInMiddleGA]

After starting the season 1-1 before I even realized the new season had started, I logged in, did one round of recruiting & tweaked my lineups based on the two games worth of feedback ... and promptly forgot about the team again over the holidays.

I check back in today to find that we're 6-4, I've signed both of the recruits I offered back in late December (both ranked in the low 200's). Since I was only 7-11 last year while actively "coaching" the team and made only so-so upgrades best I can figure it seems as though I'm better off leaving them alone.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Training has been tweaked. Again.

Bumped up the growth and cut the loss rate in half. We'll see what happens.

And yes. I'm still insanely busy at work, and still don't REALLY know what to do in regards to the game engine, which I still am not sure how to make more meaningful w/ regards to feedback.

I kindof expected you to be very busy this time of year as we all are. I just wanted to get down the notes that I had accumulated over break.

The problem is that with a perpetual game, it's practically a lost season and, when you're dealing with the college game- those changes resonate for 4 seasons. Most of these issues that will eventually need to be addressed and they vary in gameplay impact, as shown below:
-the lack of feedback for how training works is a major issue in that it's hard to tell how good your players are, but it's a tough change as there's no clear solution
-more than 1 blue chip won't change this season but has to be addressed before the offseason or else it will have another huge impact
-faulty reporting of a player not "losing" in any skill but losing boxes and other sorts of training reporting is very annoying but not really game changing
-CPU teams that have 8 seniors because graduating players are replaced at random and not with freshmen is again, something that has to be addressed in the offseason or next year there are going to be really elite computer teams with 10 or more seniors
-The tournament would be really fun but, at this point, other things have to be fixed before it can be implemented

Hey, you know I don't mind and even enjoy being a guinea pig for this sort of stuff. But functionally broken is just not that fun, particularly the way it's been the first half of the season: I might as well just be flipping a coin- and it's a hell of a lot less effort than putting in the stats and adjusting twice a week.

SI

[Sgran]

One more thing I'd fix: this season I had a walk-on senior who is arguably my best player. Don't see that happen too often.